Monday, February 8, 2016

Random goals!

In case you haven't heard...there are more kids in our house.  Which is a pretty crazy way to start the new year, if you ask me!  Usually I make some goals for the new year, nothing too serious, and this year is a little different.  For various reasons, I am not really focused this year and I'm also exhausted!  My 'go to' way to 'get it together' is to make lists.  I really wanted to make these fancy goals this year, but I'll have to settle for a random list.
- Get back to working out.  Even just once a week!
- Get Bert and Ernie into some counseling, maybe even family counseling.  We've said that for almost every foster kid that has come into our house.  All of them have needed some form of it, but none more than Bert and Ernie.  In the past, it just didn't work out - either they were unable to attend due to their visitation schedule or they were too young to benefit much.  In our situation, there will be no excuses made.
- Go through the bin of school papers from past years.  I hope to weed out a lot...it would be nice to have a binder for each year.  That would be an improvement on my current filing system (aka dump it in the bin and deal w/it later)!
- Make a covered feeding station and dust bath corner for the chickens.
- Get a compost pile going again.
- Hang up the pic of Pippa and make a name plate for the coop.
- Grow stuff - we live in the woods, so there is tons of shade, but maybe people will trade veggies w/me?  I can grow plenty of things well, like greens and such, but between the shade and the deer, I'm not sure how successful I will be at growing a variety.  Either way, I need tend to growing stuff to feel happy =)
- Plan ahead some camping for the summer.  Schedule a camping date w/my aunt and uncle, who have a fancy new trailer, as well as with some willing friends!
- Give away the baby/little toddler clothes.  Seriously.  I have given a lot away and weeded a lot out, but the youngest is 4 and it will be at least 2 years before any new kids can come into our home.  I need to unload a lot of clothes.  I have some prospects - the crisis pregnancy center, a place that gives them away to young moms, a mission in Haiti, etc...but there are memories tied up in the clothes and it's so hard!  Baby steps, right?  Like I said, I've made a huge dent in it, but I can do better.
- Get back to Bible study of some kind.  It's been too long.  I used to do it online and I just haven't lately.  I was all set to join the one at church, but now I am no longer kid-less for the times they meet and childcare is not an option.  I have made it work before, I've seen the benefits in my life, but I'm just not there right now.
- Date nights need to happen.  I miss them a lot.  Another area where I make excuses.  I'm not ready to leave everyone w/someone yet.  Maybe if it was a duo of young people, like sisters or a brother sister team or something?  I don't know.  I've got ideas but still trying to find time to talk to people.
- Keep prepping food.  I have been impressing myself a bit lately by cooking a boatload of chicken breasts and then building various meals off of them.  I had my hubby pop popcorn and kept it in an ice cream bucket for quick, fairly healthy snacks.  I made a double batch of chili.  Who is this person?  Again, I'm not good at cooking and this is not really a huge deal to most of you, but I was pretty proud of myself.  I even invented taquitos!  Yeah, I know, I didn't invent them, I just made them from an idea out of my mind.  We've never had them b/c I was too scared they were hard to make.  They're not.  But you already knew that!
- Make a trail in the woods.  Or trails.  There are ridges that we could build forts on, but between the ridges it is boggy.  We'll need to build bridges.  We can't wait!  We should build tree forts, both on the ground and in a tree too.  We hope to put up swings of some kind...Oh man, I could stretch this goal out for a whole post on it's own!
- Get some decent family photos done.  I have a lot of friends who are photographers, but again I need to set it up.  I will try not to stress about what people will wear...I hate the monochrome, matchy matchy kind of thing...I have some ideas in my head of doing something different - it seems everyone around here does the beach thing.  I like that, but I'd love to do something in the woods!
- Decorate.  The kids' posters for their rooms have languished in a box for over a year!  I have gotten a few photos on the walls of the living room, but I plan to do more.  Some of that will happen after a major fix on the house, which will hopefully lead to some new furniture.  We would love to do a renovation too, but not sure that's in the budget.  It would be good to just start by decorating.
I'm sure this isn't it for my random goals....but my boy's practice is almost over, which means my relatively quiet free time is too.  I'm grateful for the chance to write more often!